An article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Burke excommunicates board and priest," says
Excommunication is rare, according to Monsignor Ronny Jenkins, a professor of canon law at the Catholic University of America in Washington.
This is, unfortunately, quite inaccurate. According to canon 1398,
A person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.
According to canon 1314,
Generally, a penalty is ferendae sententiae, so that it does not bind the guilty party until after it has been imposed; if the law or precept expressly establishes it, however, a penalty is latae sententiae, so that it is incurred ipso facto when the delict is committed.
Thus, anyone who succeeds in procuring an abortion automatically incurs excommunication. Since this is such a common sin, excommunication is relatively common in the Catholic Church. What is not so common is for a bishop to declare that someone is excommunicated.
Such a rare event has happened in the Archdiocese of St. Louis. The penalty was incurred for schism.
There's no getting around the excommunication for abortion. It's simply an act that is, by its very nature, such a serious departure from Catholic faith that it causes a separation from the main body. Canon 1398 simply respects that fact. Because our society teaches that abortion is o.k., however, the primary culpability for the sin of abortion may actually not be in the person who gets the abortion, but in those who counsel the person to get the abortion.